An average household annually uses approximately 13 MWh of energy only for heating the premises. In addition, all those households generate approximately ⅕ of global CO2 emissions. Operating costs (including energy costs) for the building can make up 80% of the total cost of ownership during a building's lifecycle. Thus it is especially important to invest in energy efficiency, with today's rising energy prices, to save on future operating costs.
Solutions for energy saving and controlling are known from prior art, such as a multi-utility energy control system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,385, where a control center computer is connected to various utility consuming systems and is adapted to provide interactive opportunities for the consumer via a plurality of diverse energy and utility-related search engines. In addition the system is adapted to sense real time rates from existing utility meters, and receive and update alternative utility company competitive pricing information as well as provide short term utility contracts for purchase of competitively priced utilities of an alternative utility company.
Among others U.S. Pat. No. 6,965,319 discloses a system having a central station being in a data communication with utility meters via internet for acquiring meter data. The central station includes a load forecasting agent to predict an amount of power used at remote locations based upon data acquired by the intelligent agent so that an optimization of operation of the meters can be done.
In addition, for example document U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,017 discloses a system for predicting energy use conditions to be encountered by a building. It provides Multi-Variant, Non-Linear load forecasting techniques, energy and cost savings calculations, and Weather Ranking, where the load forecasting technique accepts numerous external parameters as input. The system calculates energy and cost savings using Complex Rates and time-of-use energy data.
Furthermore document U.S. Pat. No. 6,577,962 discloses a system which generates an energy usage load forecast profiles base on a determined periodic energy load usage of the facility
Also different kinds of intelligent building systems are known from prior art, such as the building systems including security systems, fire control systems, elevator systems, and/or building environmental system described by U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,017. The building environmental system may regulate e.g. temperature and air flow in a building. Air conditioning may include chillers for cooling air, heaters for heating air and fans for distributing air into a duct system that directs the flow of air to the various rooms of a building. It is also known that the speed of a motor that drives a fan may be controlled to regulate air flow within the system. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,017 the control system is used to vary the fan motor speed in order to maintain the desired conditions within the building.
However, there are some disadvantages relating to the known prior art solutions, such as that they are able to minimize the energy consumption and costs only for a certain facility or building but not comprehensively and for larger or more complex entities.